Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events - Plot

Plot

Lemony Snicket (Jude Law) hides in a clocktower while writing his documentation about the three wealthy Baudelaire children: Violet (Emily Browning), Klaus (Liam Aiken), and Sunny (Kara and Shelby Hoffman). One morning when they leave the mansion to play at the fun beach, Mr. Poe, the family banker (Timothy Spall), informs the children that their parents have just perished in a fire that also destroyed their mansion. Mr. Poe then sends the children to live with Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), an actor who is supposedly their closest relative. After arriving at a nice house, Justice Strauss, Olaf's neighbor, informs them that Olaf is across the road, in a squalid, hideous house. The kids learn that Olaf has only accepted their guardianship under the belief that he will get their big fortune but when he learns the opposite he stops all friendliness to the children after promising to take care of them well; he treats the children awfully, giving them a long list of chores to do everyday and provides them one bed and no possessions except rocks and he sends them to bed when it is far from nighttime; one night when he orders the kids to make dinner they make pasta but Olaf is outraged when he finds that they have not made roast beef, slaps Klaus and when they threaten to call the authorities he puts them in solitary confinement in their room.

On the day Olaf is granted full custody of the children he pretends to be apologetic but however, he brings them out for a drive, and makes a stop at the Last Chance General Store to pick up some sodas. The orphans realize that Count Olaf has parked the car on a grade crossing and intends to have them killed by a passing train. Through an improvised device by Violet, they are able to pull the switch protecting a track merge a few feet short of the crossing in the nick of time, diverting the train to the other track. Mr. Poe sees Sunny sitting in the front seat and takes the Baudelaires from Olaf, arguing that no responsible parent would let a child Sunny's age unattended on a car's front seat, although he doesn't believe Klaus when he tells him that Olaf tried to kill them. Olaf, pretending to have an emotional goodbye with the Baudelaires, promises that he will find them again and get their fortune one way or another.

Mr. Poe sends the Baudelaires to live with their uncle, Dr. Montgomery Montgomery (Billy Connolly), a cheerfully eccentric herpetologist. The Baudelaires live happily with Uncle Monty, who plans a trip with them to Peru, and they spend their time preparing for the journey in Montgomery's Reptile Room. Uncle Monty also tells them that he has recently discovered a new snake and called it the Incredibly Deadly Viper and intends to present the snake to the scientific community. The viper almost escapes and tries to bite Sunny, but Monty tells the children that the snake's name is a misnomer, intended as a prank to his fellow herpetologists for making fun of his name, and it is perfectly harmless. Their stay with him is cut short when Olaf appears in disguise as an Italian man named Stephano(Stef-an-o), who Uncle Monty hired to replace his assistant, Gustav (who is implied to have been murdered by Olaf). The Baudelaires recognize their ex-guardian, and tried to warn their uncle many times, but they are either impeded by Olaf, or misinterpreted by Montgomery, until the earlier murders Monty and frames the Incredibly Deadly Viper for the killing. Mr. Poe arrives at the scene, but, as usual, doesn't believe the children when they try to explain Stefano's identity. As the disguised Olaf prepares to spirit the children away, Sunny reveals the snake's true gentle nature, and Olaf's plot is exposed. Olaf abandons his disguise and escapes.

The orphans are then sent to live by Lake Lachrymose, where their Aunt Josephine (Meryl Streep) resides in a house perched precariously on the edge of a cliff overlooking the waters of the vast Lake Lachrymose (to make matters worse, an incoming Hurricane is making the house increasingly unstable). The lake is infested with leeches that will devour a human if they enter the water after eating without waiting an hour. Josephine presents an odd obsession with grammar, and has numerous irrational fears such as: the refrigerator falling down and crushing someone, the doorknobs shattering into pieces, and the stove catching on fire. It is revealed that she greatly fears the lake itself (her husband, Ike, was eaten by the Lachrymose Leeches), yet her fear of realtors prevents her from moving; she now can only look at the lake through an enormous window located at her library. However, Olaf arrives once again, disguised as a sailor named Captain Sham, and tries to seduce Aunt Josephine (by pretending grammar is the most important thing to him and that he lost his leg to the leeches by not waiting an hour after eating). The Baudelaire children attempt to persuade their aunt that Sham is Count Olaf, but she doesn't believe them, mainly because Captain Sham doesn't have a tattoo of an eye on his ankle, which is Olaf's distinguishing feature.

One afternoon, the children come home to find the library's Wide Window shattered and a suicide note from Aunt Josephine, saying that she is putting them under the care of Captain Sham. Klaus quickly realizes that it is a code because Josephine was particular about her and the children's grammar, but many mistakes were made. The orphans discover that the code spells "Curdled Cave", referring to a cavern located at the other end of the lake. A hurricane starts to tear the house apart and the children discover a room of photographs and documents which apparently contain clues to the cause of the fire that killed their parents, but the orphans are forced to escape, and the room with all the documents, falls to the Lachrymose Lake with the rest of the house. Traveling via boat, they find Aunt Josephine hiding, and she tells the Baudelaires that Olaf forced her to write the note, but added the mistakes to reveal her location to the children. After convincing her to come back with them, despite her fear of Olaf, Josephine reveals that the children's parents were the leaders of a secret organization that investigated fires, and all of their previous caretakers had been members of this mysterious organization. Before aunt Josephine can explain further, they encounter the Lachrymose leeches. Count Olaf arrives and rescues the children, but leaves Josephine to be eaten alive by the leeches. Mr. Poe arrives, and gives custody back to Count Olaf, seeing how he rescued the children. During the conversation, Poe reveals to Olaf that the Count wouldn't inherit the children's fortune even if they died, with the exception of blood relatives, or married couples. After thinking for a moment, he invites Mr. Poe to his latest play.

The play is titled The Marvelous Marriage and stars himself and Violet as the leads. In the play, his character is supposed to marry Violet's character. Mr. Poe, his wife, and various people arrive for the opening night. Klaus quickly realizes that the wedding in the play is real, and it will allow him to gain access to her inheritance. This move is accomplished by Olaf's casting of Justice Strauss, as the supposed judge in the play; with her in this role, the marriage is technically legal. To ensure Violet's cooperation, Olaf holds Sunny hostage in a birdcage high above his tower. Klaus manages to escape the play, and goes to save Sunny using a grappling hook and climbs the tower. He arrives and, as he tries to free Sunny, one of the Count's associates, a man with hooks for hands, tries to kill him, but falls out the window. Sunny points out a gigantic eye to Klaus, and as he approaches it, he notices it matches an illustration found at their Aunt Josephine's secret room. Meanwhile, Violet tries to sign the wedding certificate using her left hand, which would have nullified the marriage, however, Olaf notices and prevents it. Immediately after Violet signs the document, he declares that the play has ended, and reveals his scheme to Mr. Poe, and the rest of the audience, saying that there is nothing they can do to stop him, now that he is legally married to Violet, and taunts them for not believing the Baudelaires when they tried to tell them of his evil plans. Klaus discovers that the eye is actually a complex light-focusing apparatus that Olaf apparently used to set fire to the Baudelaire mansion, and uses it to burn Olaf and Violet's marriage certificate from the tower. Olaf is arrested, and the narration of Lemony Snicket explains that the count is then sentenced to endure every unfortunate event he put the children in before being sent to jail. However, Lemony Snicket admits, this is not true, as the Count vanished after a jury of his associates declared him innocent. Mr. Poe drives the children to a new home, but makes a stop to let the orphans say goodbye to their old home. At the ruins of the Baudelaire Mansion, the three orphans receive a letter their parents sent to them during a journey to Europe, but had gotten lost in the mail. The envelope also contained a spyglass, similar to the ones Klaus noticed Aunt Josephine, and Uncle Monty possessed. The film ends with Mr. Poe's car driving away to the distance through a road flanked by trees, and the narrator (Lemony Snicket) hiding his report on the Baudelaires on the clock tower.